North Dufferin Baseball League hands out awards

March 15, 2017 · 0 Comments

By Jake Courtepatte

With the 2017 baseball season on the horizon, the region’s AA league lauded the best of 2016 in their annual awards banquet on Sunday.
Held in Lisle, Michael Gemmiti of the Bolton Dodgers was the big winner, taking home Most Sportsmanlike, Best Batter, and the ultimate honour of the evening, League MVP.
Gemmiti, a longtime veteran with the Bolton club, finished last season with an impressive .494 batting percentage. His 38 hits were also good for tops in the league, while his on-base percentage fell below only Aurora’s Brad Crosby.
His Most Sportsmanlike trophy was his second earned in a row.
Crosby, a veteran batter, fielder, and pitcher for the Jays, was at the top or near it in every offensive category for the Aurora squad last season. His on-base percentage of .655 was matched by a batting percentage of .455, while playing in all but two of Aurora’s games.
Best Pitcher went to Brad Grieveson of the Ivy Leafs, who went a perfect 8 – 0 in the starting position last season. His 67 strikeouts were good for second in the league, while his earned-run average was far and away the best of the bunch.
The New Lowell Knights were also applauded for their championship victory, their second in a row after taking down the Ivy Leafs.
League business was taken care of at the annual general meeting that followed the ceremony, with the decision being made to expand the senior division to sixteen teams from fourteen the previous year. The teams’ locations and names are yet to be announced.
The season will also be lengthened, from 26 to a 30-game schedule.
The junior league will remain the same with the four teams playing eighteen games.
Official schedules will be released in early April, though the season is set to begin the first week of May.
They will be found at www.ndbl.ca.
Aurora was bounced last season from postseason contention by the Knights, who had one of the most dominating performances in the senior league in years. Following a three-game sweep of the Midland Indians, Aurora fell in four games to the Knights, their second year in a row falling in the semifinal series after making the championship in 2014.
Despite putting up a contending team each year, the Jays are still in search of their first Strother Cup, with either the Leafs, Knights, or Bolton Brewers winning each of the last eight years.